Since We're on the Subject...

steph861

How do you guys feel about elementary/high school fundraisers? I see a lot of schools that have one like every month - way over the top in my opinion. I get that schools often don't have the money for extracurriculars. Hell, a lot don't even have the money for basic supplies. But in my experience, family members get so tired of being asked to donate / buy crap they don't need to support somebody's school every month or two. I wish more schools would focus on a small number of fundraisers with higher individual monetary goals, and spread them out over the school year. /rant

ETA: I swear I had paragraphs...

AprilH81

Once a year, maybe twice and that is my limit.

arrippa

I have become good at ignoring them on Facebook. Last week, I was driving home on a busy road and there were cheerleaders going up to cars stopped at the light asking for money.  I am use to firemen with the "boot" or homeless guys doing that.

daria24

I'm not a fan of parents posting on behalf of their kids-ie "Sarah's selling candles, let me know if you want any." 

I went to Catholic school and we had at least one fundraiser a month. Depending on how many activities you were a part of, it could be up to 3 or 4 at a time. It was annoying as hell. My mother eventually just started writing checks at the beginning of the year/activity and said "I don't want any stupid pizzas, here's the damn money." 

I hate the whole system, getting little kids to sell stuff because taxes/tuition/whatever won't cover the cost. 

emmyg65

I hate them, but I guess they're a necessary evil in the face of mounting budget cuts. It especially bugs me when people ask for their kids. My parents always made me do it myself.

AprilH81

What is sad is that a lot of those fundraisers only give the school/organization a minuscule amount of the sale.

mysticl

I hated the fundraisers when I was in elementary school. I grew up in a place where there are a lot of people who have lived there for generations.  For example my step-family has been there for over 200 years.  I was born there but my family was not from there. We lived there because of my dad's job.  As a result I didn't have any family in the area to sell to.  Every other kid in the school would be selling the exact same thing so the neighbors were out of the question too because they bought from their kids, their grandkids/nieces/nephews/10th cousin 3 time removed, or someone else got to them first.  So I ended up selling one thing to my parents.  

It was a little easier when I was in high school because the fundraiser were either class or activity specific so you didn't have everyone else in town selling the same thing.  

AprilH81

Our area was big on fundraising activities (not just begging on the street corners).  The band held car washes, Christmas Tree sales and one big Orange/Grapefruit sale in the fall (these sold themselves for the most part, people called the band office to place an order if they didn't know a kid in the band that year).

Little League teams would bag groceries at grocery stores for tips...  Those kinds of things.

wandajune6

FI's niece and nephew each had 7 last year. 7. It was absurd.

After the second one we told their parents that we're willing to spend $x/kid on fundraisers through the end of the year- it's up to them to decide the timing. That helped.

scrunchythief

l I hated doing the selling things fundraisers in school.  I was even shyer then and hated asking people to buy things.  At the same time, I felt like a bad person if I didn't help.  It sucked.

In high school, the club fundraisers were normally car washes, which I loved!  They were generally free with donations accepted.  I got super into them, and would bring brushes from home to do the tires.  I'd have people say they were giving us extra money because of how shiny I would get the hubcaps.  I loved that and actually felt like I was helping the club and the person who was donating.  

krcb

My favorite fundraisers are the ones where coupon books are sold. $5 for lots of coupons? Count me in!

Aray82

I went to Catholic elementary and high school,and so did most of my family's friends. These fundraisers were friggin everywhere, mostly selling crap. My high school would have auctions sometimes which were kind of cool but they still didn't make much from them. Girl Scout cookies I will buy, but what do you do when everyone and tie cousin is selling them? On the other hand, these schools do need to raise a lot of money that tuition doesn't always cover. That said, it should be on the school administration to get more savvy about development practices and/or hire people who are.

CMGragain

I refused to let my kids participate.  I made a cash donation instead.

tigersgirlgv

I've heard of some schools that know people are annoyed at being asked to buy pizza/wrapping paper/etc all year long have switched to just asking people to donate money to the school/PTO at the beginning of the year and then they won't do any fundraisers for the rest of the year. You don't get anything for donating, but you don't get bothered for the rest of the year. Thoughts?

arrippa

We actually had two pretty fun fundraisers. My freshman year, the band had a 24 play-a-thon. I wasn't in band, but I was on the flag team so we were included. Either the band or our team would play for 24 hours straight and people would donate. It was like one big sleepover in the gym of my school.

The other was along the same lines. Senior year,  the school district did a 24 hour walk. We would have  teams and fundraise money based on every team walking for 24 hours around the track of a high school. We had a team of 10, so every hour we would switch the walking. For those not walking during the night, we had a tent around the track and would sleep in there.

 

scrunchythief

arrippa said:

We actually had two pretty fun fundraisers. My freshman year, the band had a 24 play-a-thon. I wasn't in band, but I was on the flag team so we were included. Either the band or our team would play for 24 hours straight and people would donate. It was like one big sleepover in the gym of my school.

My choir did one of these too:)  It was in the cafeteria, and the best part was when some kids snuck out a got a picture of this really creepy teacher asleep at his desk at 3 am on a Friday.  He wasn't super dedicated; he just didn't like going home.  Add that to him locking one of my classmates in a chemistry supply closet and him having married a student a few months after graduation, divorcing her and marrying another student soon after graduation...yeah he was strange.  Stupid tenure.  

Senecaf

I hate the ones were you sell stuff. They make the kids feel uncomfortable and put a lot of stress on parents to harass family and friends.
In HS the spring sports teams sold mulch once a year. That was a good one I think. You buy sq ft of bulk mulch (donated by some company) and we, the high school athletes, would deliver it in truck beds. It was useful and rewarded our hard work.

Luckily my kids school doesn't seem to do many. The have a jog once a year and that is their big fundraising effort. I'm down with that.

mysticl

tigersgirlgv said:

I've heard of some schools that know people are annoyed at being asked to buy pizza/wrapping paper/etc all year long have switched to just asking people to donate money to the school/PTO at the beginning of the year and then they won't do any fundraisers for the rest of the year. You don't get anything for donating, but you don't get bothered for the rest of the year. Thoughts?

Works for me. Provided they don't mandate an amount the parents have to donate, not everyone can afford it.  

Most of our fundraisers were crap anyhow.  Jelly beans at Easter, Reese's cups at Halloween (okay Reese's cups are great but that meant that like every house was giving them out), stupid cheap knick knack stuff in between.  The ham and cheese sandwich/hoagie sales did pretty well as did the magazine sale but for the most part they sucked. 

KatieinBkln

I'm not crazy about them, but I am happy to ignore these. I remember being forced (as a National Honor Society member) to go door-to-door soliciting money for the NHS scholarship fund. I seem to remember thinking it was total bullshit. The worst was that we were in a nice, but not wealthy neighborhood mostly populated by little old ladies, most of whom couldn't afford to give, and many of whom were happy to give us a piece of their minds about bothering people on fixed incomes. The worst part was, of course, that I agreed with them. I am not cut out for fundraising; I feel like an asshole asking people for money, even if it's for a good cause. (I even hated selling Girl Scout cookies, which are basically the only thing people are happy to buy from someone ringing a doorbell).

mysticl

KatieinBkln said:

I'm not crazy about them, but I am happy to ignore these. I remember being forced (as a National Honor Society member) to go door-to-door soliciting money for the NHS scholarship fund. I seem to remember thinking it was total bullshit. The worst was that we were in a nice, but not wealthy neighborhood mostly populated by little old ladies, most of whom couldn't afford to give, and many of whom were happy to give us a piece of their minds about bothering people on fixed incomes. The worst part was, of course, that I agreed with them. I am not cut out for fundraising; I feel like an asshole asking people for money, even if it's for a good cause. (I even hated selling Girl Scout cookies, which are basically the only thing people are happy to buy from someone ringing a doorbell).

We did a bake sale for that. Then I found out after I graduated that I wasn't actually a member of the National Honor Society because our advisor hadn't done whatever it was she was supposed to do to make/keep us a member of the national organization.